White-Collar Crime

White-Collar Crime | A play
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Act 1, Scene 3
The Rectory Parlor
Friday ~ Late Afternoon

Scene Continues…

GALLO: Tell me, Paul. How do you do it? Every week you’re pulling in over 10 grand. What’s your secret?

GRADY: (as though telling a secret)   It’s the Evangelicals.

GALLO: (can’t believe his ears) The what?

GRADY: (continues his “secret”) Every Tuesday and Thursday night we rent the church out to Evangelical groups. They kick in a couple of grand a week and we add that to our Sunday collection totals.

GALLO: (thinks...his mind’s turning) The Evangelicals? Not a bad idea.

CUMMINGS: (as though come to your senses) Frank.

GALLO: Tuesday and Thursday nights would be good. We have nothing going on in the church. Course we have bingo in the church basement on Tuesdays but I wouldn’t think they’d make much noise upstairs in the church.

CUMMINGS: Sometimes they do. Tell him, Paul.

GRADY: (whispers) A few weeks ago there were these loud thump sounding noises. We peeked in through the back doors and people looked like they were passing out as they stood in the front of the church. You know they have these altar calls.

GALLO: (extremely curious) Thump sounds?

GRADY: Thump. Thump. Thump.

                                                                   Pause

We just stood there and continued looking inside. After a while, the people would get up and start to dance around: hootin’, hollering and waving their hands like a bunch of crazy people. That’s when it happened.

GALLO: IT????

CUMMINGS: Paul, you’ve said enough.

GALLO: (story has him hooked) No, no, no. I want to know. What happened? What?

GRADY: This woman who was standing behind a group of people, got up in front of the group. She had a cage. In the cage was a chicken. Did that chicken cackle... She grabbed the chicken by the neck, held it high over her head and then…   and then…

GALLO: What? What? What?

GRADY: …she bit the chicken’s head off.

GALLO: Oh, my sweet Jesus, mother of the living Christ. Right in your church???

CUMMINGS: Frank, he’s kidding.

                                                                 GRADY laughs

GRADY: Seriously, Frank. We don’t have a clue why the collections are up.

Scene Continues…

Act 2, Scene 4
Sacred Heart Rectory

Scene Continues...

HEBERT: I expect Father to be back any second now. I was just saying how he had to go to Harvest Crest to give one of our own nuns the –

                                                                  Sound of door opening.

Here he is, now.

                                                                  GALLO enters.

GALLO: I’m sorry I’m late. I had an emergency. You must be Bobby Callahan.

CALLAHAN: Good to see you Father.   How’s Sister Angelis?

GALLO: She’s a tough one, Bobby. They thought she was dying this morning. I get there and she gets all this fight back in her. Started screaming at me for closing her school. Quite frankly, don’t get me wrong, I love her dearly but the woman is evil. She’s going to put all of us in the grave before we put her in her’s. .

                                                                Pause.

Would you boys like some coffee?

CALLAHAN: Love some.

SPENCER: Sure.

HEBERT: I’ll be right back.

                                                HEBERT leaves
                                   Pause.

GALLO : It’s been over 25 years since your family moved out of the parish. How’d you end up back in Middletown?

CALLAHAN: My dad was transferred to Georgia when I was in the 5^th grade. I came back north to go to college. I interned at the Herald. They had me on the grunt assignments at first: writing about school committee meetings and houses of the week.

GALLO: As I recall you broke Mayor Crandall’s bribery story.

SPENCER: Isn’t that the guy who was caught on FBI tape stuffing envelopes full of cash into his brief case?

CALLAHAN: Right. That story finally got me into the newsroom.

GALLO: You have turned into a gifted writer.

CALLAHAN: Thanks to Columbia…and Sacred Heart School, of course.

GALLO: Of course.

                                                                 Brief pause.
                                                                GALLO clears his throat.
Over the past couple of years, Bobby, you have been hard on the church.

CALLAHAN: Undeservedly?

GALLO: Not at all. Sometimes we have to get slapped on the side of our head, gets our attention. It’s guys like you who have exposed the scandals some wanted to keep well hidden.

CALLAHAN: Think about if we didn’t expose the scandals.

GALLO: Good Lord. Most of we clergy didn’t know it but we were rotting from within. I didn’t even know such a thing existed until I read it in the papers. I’m sure most of our priests didn’t know.

                                                                 HEBERT enters with
                                                                coffee & muffins.

HEBERT: Here you go, There’s fresh blueberry muffins.

CALLAHAN: Thank you.

SPENCER: Thanks, Mrs. Hebert.

                                                                  HEBERT serves coffee
                                                                 and muffins. .

GALLO: Why I called you last night, why I wanted both of you here this morning, we too have a situation right here at Sacred Heart…

CALLAHAN: Should I take notes?

GALLO: Absolutely. I had this fine assistant priest, Fr. James Cummings…

CALLAHAN: Fr. Gallo, wait. Before you say anything you do understand that if I take notes everything’s on the record.

GALLO: That’s Reverend Frank Gallo, 2 l's.

  Lights out.

End of Act 2, Scene 4